Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/254

Rh of the youngster was very different from what it was when I first took him in my lap to drive away with him. There was no confiding twinkle in his eye, no contented munching of his little fists. He gazed up at me with wild alarm, and as I drove out of the gate he burst forth into such a yell that Lord Edward came bounding around the house to see what was the matter. Euphemia suddenly appeared at an upper window and called out to me, but I did not hear what she said. I whipped up the horse and we sped along to New Dublin. Pat soon stopped crying, but he looked at me with a tear-stained and reproachful visage. The good women of the settlement were surprised to see little Pat return so soon.

"An' wasn't he good?" said Mrs. Hogan, as she took him from my hands.

"Oh, yes!" I said. "He was as good as he could be. But I have no further need of him."

I might have been called upon to explain this statement, had not the whole party of women who stood around burst into wild expressions of delight at Pat's beautiful clothes.

"Oh! jist look at 'em!" cried Mrs. Duffy. "An' see thim little pittycoots, thrimmed wid lace! Oh, an' it was good in ye, sir, to give him all thim, an' pay the foive dollars too."

"An' I'm glad he's back," said the fostering aunt, "for I was a-coomin' over to till ye that I've been hearin' from owle Pat, his dad, an' he's a-coomin' back from the moines, and I don't know what he'd a' said if he'd found his leetle Pat was rinted. But if ye iver want to borry him for a whoile after owle Pat's gone back ye kin have him rint-free; an' it's much obloiged I am to ye, sir, fur dressin' him so foine."